Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (15)

 

 

As Bonhoeffer concludes his chapter on the Body of Christ, he tells us that the Body is the fulfillment of prophecy concerning the temple of God in the Old Testament. The promise that God gave to David, that David would have a son who would build God a house, was fulfilled only as shadow in Solomon, but truly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The true temple is to be found in Jesus. “The temple which the Jewish people expect is the body of Christ. The temple of the Old Testament is merely a shadow of the body of Christ (Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1; 8:5)” (page 204).

 

“In this house God truly dwells, as does the new humanity, the church-community of Christ” (page 204).

 

As always, Bonhoeffer looks to Scripture for his vision and teaching. On page 205 he cites 1 Peter 2:5ff, Ephesians 2:20 – 21; 1 Corinthians 3:11,16; 6:19; Revelation 21:22.

 

“In whom [Jesus Christ] the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:20 – 21; see also Eph. 4:16).

 

Note that leading up to Ephesians 2:20 – 21, Paul makes it clear that there is now “one new man” in Christ, that Jew and Gentile have been made one in Christ. One new man, one Body, one Temple. This theme is carried into chapters 3 and 4, and how we can miss it is a mystery to me. The idea that God wants to build again what He has brought to an end by establishing another physical temple not only has no basis in the Bible, it blinds us to the glorious reality of our One New Man in Christ, and of our calling to be God’s Presence in the earth today.

 

As Paul writes, “The Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother” (Gal. 4:26).

 

I have watched, more than once, people in Sunday school and small group studies read Ephesians 2:11 – 22 and it never occur to them what they are reading. They never question whether what they believe about a physical temple being rebuilt and even animal sacrifices being reinstituted might be terribly amiss. They never see the contradiction between the Bible and the idea that God somehow has two distinct people groups with two distinct purposes and destinies. They never see that God has made us all One in Christ, that Christ “broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” (Eph. 2:14).

 

This is a particularly American blind spot, with vestiges in the UK, but Americans can generally take credit for this distraction which diverts us from Jesus Christ and our calling and identity in Him.

 

While Bonhoeffer did not address this distraction, it is likely because it was not an issue in Germany, in Europe, or in the Anglo – American circles with which he was associated. It was not the full – blown religious industry it is today, raking in its millions of dollars.

 

I am bringing this to our attention because it is likely that many readers have never critically thought about what the Bible really teaches about the One People of God in Christ, the One Body of Christ. If we believe what Bonhoeffer writes, which is based on Jesus Christ and Scripture, then we ought to be honest enough to realize that most of what passes for “end times” teaching is without foundation in Christ and the Bible.

 

“You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 2:5).

 

“The temple of God is the holy church-community in Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is the living temple of God and of the new humanity” (page 205).

 

As we conclude Chapter 10 of Discipleship, Part II, I hope we will review and ponder what Bonhoeffer has written, for it is far and above what most of us have encountered in our lives, and it is deeply grounded in Jesus Christ and in His Word. I hope it challenges you; it most certainly challenges me.

 

If you have not yet actually read Discipleship (traditionally known as The Cost of Discipleship), I hope that you will do so. I recommend the Fortress Press reader’s edition.

 

In our next reflection in this series we’ll turn to, the Lord willing, Chapter 11, The Visible Church-Community.

 

Much love,

 

Bob

The Already, Not Yet Hour

 

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers” (John 4:23).

 

“Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

 

Now we come to another way in which the word “hour” is used in John’s Gospel, another way in which we can understand the Divine clockwork. This way of understanding the working of our Father is vital to our participating in the Divine Nature and in His promises, for whatever is ours in eternity future, is also ours in Christ in eternity present. That is, we are called to participate now in that which we will fully experience when the fulness of time arrives. Another way to put it is that we don’t need to wait for heaven, we can experience heaven now – heaven is coming and already is.

 

In John 4, Jesus tells the woman at the well, “An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (4:21). He follows it up with “An hour is coming and now is” (4:23).

 

At the time of Jesus’ encounter with the woman, Samaritan worship was still occurring in Mount Gerizim, and Jewish worship was till occurring in Jersualem, and while such worship would continue after Jesus’ death and resurrection and Pentecost, it would no longer constitute the Divine Order, as we see in Hebrews and elsewhere in the Bible. (Why, O why, do we seek to build again those things which were a shadow of the Perfect which was to come, and which is now here?)

 

Even though worship was still occurring in Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim as Jesus spoke to the woman, there was another order of worship also occurring, worship in spirit and truth, a higher worship, a more intimate worship, a heavenly koinonia – not oriented toward the external, but rather rooted in the internal and eternal.  Jesus invited the woman to experience a fountain of living water within her so that she would never thirst again.

 

An hour was coming, but the woman did not have to wait, for the coming hour had arrived for her, that which was “not yet” was “already” for her.  When we encounter Jesus Christ, eternity past and eternity future coming rushing into our lives in eternity now – we come into the fellowship of the Burning Bush, the I AM THAT I AM.

 

In John 5 Jesus focuses our attention on “the judgment” and future life and death. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:21 – 22).

 

Notice how Jesus uses the present tense. While we normally think of judgment as future, Jesus speaks of it as present. While we think of raising the dead as future, Jesus speaks of it in the present. While this is not to deny the future element of resurrection and judgment, it is to bring that which is future into the present, it is to open the portal of the future and experience eternity future within eternity present, and to see how eternity present flows into eternity future.

 

Jesus continues, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes in Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). Eternal life is a present reality for those who know the Father and the Son (John 17:3).

 

Then we have verse 25, “An hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Jesus continues to move our future orientation into the present, He continues to bring eternity into the “now.”

 

Even as Jesus speaks in John 5, some are hearing His Voice and others are not. Those who are hearing His voice are coming forth from the dead into eternal life, as Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68 – 69).

 

In John 5:28 – 29 Jesus directs His hearers’ attention to the “not yet”: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” This “hour” is decidedly in the future, as we see in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15.

 

The woman at the well, and Jesus’ audience in John 5, were invited by Jesus into the “hour which is coming and already is.” Jesus invites you and me into that same hour.

 

There are those who see John 14:3 as an hour which is coming, and only as an hour which is coming.  “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

 

But then we have, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

 

Now then, just where is Jesus when He prays this? We could say that He is in the Upper Room. We could say that He is in Gethsemane. Wherever we think Jesus physically is when He prays this, is He asking the Father to pick us all up and place us physically with Himself so that we might be with Him where He is?

 

Of course not. Jesus is praying that we might be where He is in His relationship with the Father, He is praying that we might be in the koinonia of the Trinity. Now then, each one of us has a unique place in this fellowship, a “place that Jesus has prepared for us” as His Body, as His Temple. As we have seen in the Upper Room, Jesus comes and He goes, we see Him and then we don’t, and then we see Him again.

 

Jesus “comes again” to us, most especially after His resurrection, and He receives us to Himself in His Body, His Temple, His Church, His Bride.

 

This way of thinking and seeing and experiencing is found throughout Scripture. For example, in 1 Peter 1:1 – 9 we see elements of our salvation in eternity past, eternity present, and in eternity future. The same is true for Ephesians 1:1 – 12. As we worship the Father in spirit and in truth we can learn to live in the I AM THAT I AM, and what may seem strange or even uncomfortable to us now, may come to be our natural way of living.

 

I’ll close this reflection by suggesting that the overcomer passages in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are an opportunity to experience the “already – not yet,” the “an hour is coming and now is.”

 

For example, in Revelation 2:7 Jesus says, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” This is a wonderful promise and expectation for us in Christ, and we look forward to its full manifestation as seen in Revelation chapters 21 and 22.  Yet, we need not wait to eat from the Tree of Life, in fact, we overcome as we eat from the Tree of Life as our way of life, for Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life, He is our sole source of light and life.  Therefore, in the overcomer promises of Revelation we have a dynamic of “an hour is coming and now is.” How this works out in our lives is for us to learn as we worship God in spirit and in truth, as individuals and as His People.